Review: Bad Teacher

Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz) is a slutty chaser after a husband of means. Meanwhile, she’s teaching badly at John Adams Middle School, wearing ridiculous heels, and self-medicating in school with controlled and uncontrolled substances. When she stops filling class time by showing students DVDs of films set in classrooms, she grades homework with red-ink feedback: “Are you fucking kidding me?” After her preppy fiancée (“If opera goes away, we’re fucked!”) cancels their wedding, she hits on a dweeby sub at her suburban Chicago middle school. In SNL skit mode, Justin Timberlake plays this Scott Delacorte, a scion of a haute couture eyewear line. On a Lincoln-themed field trip to Springfield, he natters: “I just hate slavery so, so much. If I could go back in time and undo slavery, I would. I would.” Elizabeth sees that his ex and her own ex’s new squeeze both have big breasts, so she starts raising $9,300 for cosmetic surgery to get her own pair ballooned. “Bad Teacher” follows her scams with the school carwash cash and a state-test-score bonus, while she competes with another teacher for Scott. Writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg depart from the usual syllabus for the misfit teacher sub-genre by minimizing Elizabeth’s redeeming denouement. The funny result is arguably, if unforgivably, misogynist. Apart from clunky placing of Dunkin’ Donuts cups, director Jake Kasdan (“The TV Set,” “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”) handles those cast members who lack logos with well-crafted coarse humor. Especially effective are supporting characters Phyllis Smith and Jason Segel, the gym teacher who is wise to out-of-his league Elizabeth. With Lucy Punch, John Michael Higgins, Dave Allen. 89m. (Bill Stamets)